Pocket PC eBooks Watch - eBook and beyond  
 http://cebooks.blogspot.com 

Happy to Help New Year

Help survivors and their families by making monetary donations to these organizations:

American Red Cross International Response Fund
AmeriCares South Asia Earthquake Relief Fund
Direct Relief International International Assistance Fund
Médecins Sans Frontières International Tsunami Emergency Appeal
Oxfam Asian Earthquake & Tsunami Fund
Sarvodaya Relief Fund for Tsunami Tragedy
Save the Children Asia Earthquake/Tsunami Relief Fund
UNICEF South Asia Tsunami Relief Efforts

posted by Jerry permanent link

My Top 2004 eBooks/eContents events:
1. iPod Rules
2. PodCast
3. MobiPocket reaching Mobile Phone Devices
4. iTunes vs. Real Harmony
5. Mobile format sites (check pdaportal.com)

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/29/2004

Simply a Great Book
Reagan: A Life in Letters
Ronald Reagan may have been the most prolific correspondent of any American president since Thomas Jefferson. The total number of letters written over his lifetime probably exceeds 10,000. Their breadth is equally astonishing--with friends and family, with politicians, children, and other private citizens, Reagan was as dazzling a communicator in letters as he was in person. Collectively, his letters reveal his character and thinking like no other source. He made candid, considerate, and tough statements that he rarely made in a public speech or open forum. He enjoyed responding to citizens, and comforting or giving advice or encouragement to friends.

posted by Jerry permanent link

New Site
Manybooks.net
This site contains more than 10,000 eBooks formatted for reading on your Palm, PocketPC, Zaurus, Rocketbook, or Symbian cellphone.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/27/2004

...
Asia Quake and Tsunami
Pray for the victims
...

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/25/2004

Time Out! New Trend Indicator
2004 Year-End Google Zeitgeist
Search patterns, trends, and surprises
Based on billions of searches conducted by Google users around the world, the 2004 Year-End Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year's major events and trends. We hope you enjoy this aggregate look at what people wanted to know more about this year.

posted by Jerry permanent link

"It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord - well, you know who I mean - is alive among us again," said Fudge.'
New CD copy-lock technology nears market
A new kind of copy-protected music CD will likely hit U.S. shelves early next year, as record label Sony BMG Music Entertainment experiments with a technology created by British developer First 4 Internet, according to sources familiar with the companies.
The releases for the retail market, expected early in 2005, will be the first time the Sony music label issues copy-protected CDs in the U.S. market, although the company's other divisions have done so in other regions. BMG, Sony's new corporate sibling, has been more aggressive, with a handful of protected CDs released last year.

posted by Jerry permanent link

PDA Experience
PDAs Come of Age
Lately, I've been doing something I never expected: I'm using a PDA. That probably doesn't sound worth mentioning, but I've never been a big fan of PDAs. I'd either manage to break them, or they'd run out of power just when I needed them. And they always fell a little short of the functionality I've needed to make them useful.
However, the recent availability of PDAs with 640x480 (VGA) screen resolution and the added functionality of Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition gave me the impetus to invest in a Dell Axim X50v. And after a few weeks of use, I'm glad I did.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/24/2004

Peace to the World
Merry Christmas to Christian readers

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/23/2004

No Doubt
The Year of the iPod
If anything characterized the world of digital music in 2004, it was Apple’s iPod. Although a slew of music players and online music marts were unveiled by entities other than Apple, no “iPod killer” or music service gained significant traction. By the end of the year, the word “iPod” had become nearly a generic term for a digital music player, much as Walkman described portable music players 20 years earlier. And as the iTunes Music Store extended its reach across the globe, similar services did their best to scratch out a living from Apple’s leavings.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/22/2004

Another Blunder from MS
DRM at its worst? Here's a prime example
DRM is actually a part of Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system and has been for a while, but it wasn’t until I picked up a DVD recently that I witnessed the ugly and very user unfriendly side of DRM in person. The DVD in question, T2: Extreme DVD, produced by Artisan Home Entertainment Inc., is a two-dvd disk set, which holds a digitally optimized version of the T2 movie on one disk, and a high definition version of the same movie on the second disk, encoded in WMV9 format... The DVD cover was clear about the minimum requirements in terms of computer hardware for playback of the WMV9 content and since it had no warnings of the content being protected or only playable in certain regions I saw no reason to not buy it.
Unfortunately, after trying to play the DVD back with Windows Media Player 9, I couldn’t get it to work...I was surprised to find that it failed to give me a license as it had determined that my physical location was not in the US or Canada. Apparently the content was only to be played back in either one of these countries and nowhere else. After routing my IP address through an anonymous proxy server in the US I however managed to unlock the content just as well and was presented with a license agreement I had to agree to prior to being able to play the content back.
That agreement, amongst other things, stated that I could only play back the content for a period of five days... (and still more problems, click here to see more scarry DRM experiences)
Source JWalk Blog

posted by Jerry permanent link

Gutentag
DVD ebooks from Project Gutenberg
I just finished downloading the Best of Project Gutenberg DVD, a collection of 9,400 eBooks from Project Gutenberg's vast collection. Project Gutenberg, in case you are not aware of their work, has been around since 1971 and is commited to producing etexts of public domain works of literature, historical documents, and even sheet music. The DVD contains a wealth of resources for classroom teachers and students. If you want to learn more, the Top 100 eBooks listing is a great place to go to get an idea of the breadth of materials available.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/20/2004

Dejavu all over again
Will Apple flash iPod rock market?
When IBM entered the PC market in 1981, Apple Computer took out a full-page newspaper ad welcoming its rival.
Today, with Apple reportedly poised to debut its first flash-memory-based music player after rocking the market for hard-drive devices with the iPod, some competitors are taking a similar laissez-faire stance.
"Welcome to the party," said Thomson Vice President David Arland, whose RCA brand is among the top three in U.S. retail sales.

posted by Jerry permanent link

the Indigo Child phenomena
Indigo-E. T. cOnnectiOn: Everything Happens for a Reason
by Marshall Masters
Marshall Masters believes that Indigo Children have always been here and that they are now awakening to the gentle call of a living universe. "Many researchers are coming to the conclusion that we are not alone in the universe. Not all of these researchers share the same metaphysical commitments, and the trajectories of their works, although roughly parallel, are not exactly the same. But the general conclusion is that we terrestrial humans are part of a whole cosmic hierarchy of beings, with whom we are, have been, or will be in contact in one way or another. Among this group of researchers is Marshall Masters, whose latest book, the Indigo-E.T. Connection, gives his thought provoking ideas on how a small select group of terrestrial humans, with super high IQs and indigo colored auras, may be the best suited for contact with extraterrestrial beings.

posted by Jerry permanent link

The Greatest Boxer
Muhammad Ali: The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey
eBook by Muhammad Ali & Hana Yasmeen Ali
In The Soul of a Butterfly the great champion takes readers on a spiritual journey through the seasons of life, from childhood to the present, and shares the beliefs that have served him well. After fighting some of the fiercest bouts in boxing history against Joe Frazier and George Foreman, today Muhammad Ali faces his most powerful foe--outside the boxing ring. Like many people, he battles an illness that limits his physical abilities, but as he says, "I have gained more than I have lost ... I have never had a more powerful voice than I have now." Ali reflects on his faith in God and the strength it gave him during his greatest challenge, when he lost the prime years of his boxing career because he would not compromise his beliefs. He describes how his study of true Islam has helped him accept the changes in his life and has brought him to a greater awareness of life's true purpose.
Written with the assistance of his daughter Hana, The Soul of a Butterfly is a compassionate and heartfelt book that will provide comfort for our troubled times.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/17/2004

WiFi Swap
Computer Users Sued for Swapping Music
December 16, 2004
Recording companies filed copyright infringement lawsuits against 754 computer users Thursday, the latest round of legal action in the industry's effort to squelch unauthorized swapping of music online.
Among the named defendants were 20 computer users suspected of swapping songs over university networks, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group for the largest music companies.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Against ip Odds: Size Does Not Count
With Mini's Rivals, More Is Sometimes Less
This month you will be able to choose from four competitors to Apple's iPod Mini, courtesy of Dell, Rio Audio, Virgin Electronics and Creative. How do they compare?
Four great players, each with some superpower that the iPod Mini lacks. It's curtains for Apple, right?
Not so fast. On something that's as personal and frequently used as a music player, little things make a big difference, and it's in the Little Things department that the iPod Mini really shines.
For example, when your player contains a thousand songs, you need a way to scroll through them quickly. You can run your finger around the iPod's famous click wheel fast to jet down to the W's and then slowly to pinpoint "What a Wonderful World."
But the Rio's thumb wheel has no such variable speed; it's four songs per turn, period. Working through any list longer than about 12 songs is an excruciating exercise. The Dell's "rolling log" control does zip farther through a list the faster you spin it, but it's awfully hard to speed up or slow down when you're basically twirling a section of a drinking straw. The Virgin's up-down buttons scroll at two different speeds, but that's still more frustrating than the Mini's "any speed you like."
Each player comes with its own disappointments...
The backlighting of the Dell,...
The Virgin's buttons are recessed too far, its backlighting is even dimmer than the Dell's, ...
On the Creative Zen Micro, the iPod's wheel has been replaced by a touch-sensitive vertical strip. In theory it ought to offer variable speed scrolling, but in practice it's a sticky, balky nightmare...
The sculptured Rio Carbon looks cool on a tabletop, but it's all wrong for your palm...
...All right, so the iPod Mini's rivals aren't as elegant or as polished, they're not as thoughtfully conceived, and they may not fill you with as much pure, overwhelming technolust. Apple's message seems to be, "Perfection has a price."

posted by Jerry permanent link

Podcast 101
How I Make An Audio Magazine (Podcast)
"There are some very good hints in this ... especially in the audio-post-processing section. I basically give away one of my secrets for creating audio that has a lot of clear 'shine' to it. But I can't take you by the hand and teach you everything."
The most illustrated guides I've ever seen :), take a long time to download but it is fun.
Source: JWalk Blog

posted by Jerry permanent link

;)
Playboy's free come-on turns iPod into iBod
Playboy is offering its own special brand of holiday cheer to iPod Photo owners--free soft porn.
The free gallery consists of 25 PG-rated images sized for the iPod photo's display. Digital content with nude pictures is available on Playboy's subscription site Playboy Cyber Club.
A Playboy representative described the download as a soft launch for services that will target a variety of portable devices capable of displaying photos. A formal launch is planned for January, but the company figured many iPod photo devices would be given out for the holidays and made the feature available now.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Hushed
Apple sues over online product leaks
In recent weeks, the Web sites have been buzzing with speculation that Apple will introduce a smaller, cheaper version of its market-leading iPod digital music player that uses flash memory, rather than the hard disk drives of the standard iPods...
Apple's complaint, filed with the Santa Clara County, Calif. Superior Court, comes only weeks ahead of the Macworld conference in San Francisco, the annual show where CEO Steve Jobs unveils the latest Apple products.
Apple is notoriously secretive about its product plans, while many fan sites routinely discuss what may be in store, including posting pictures of real products and hoaxes.
The complaint alleges that "an unidentified individual, acting alone or in concert with others, has recently misappropriated and disseminated through Web sites confidential information about an unreleased Apple product."

posted by Jerry permanent link

You Know...
Cell Phones That Do It
A few columns ago, I mentioned my longing for a Treo 650. It's a cell phone, yes, but it's also a camera, an MP3 player, a phone book, an organizer. You can browse the web, check your e-mail, chat over IM, create spreadsheets and edit Microsoft Word documents, all from a device that fits in a shirt pocket.
With all of the business functions covered, I suppose it's no surprise that the next big thing in cell phones is to turn them into sex toys. In fact, one of the Wired News editors says it was a natural progression, considering everything else you can do with the dang things. (When I put him on the spot with "Would you buy one?" he responded, suavely, "I prefer specialized devices. I'm not an all-in-one kind of guy.")

posted by Jerry permanent link

Great Gadget
Pocket PC Catalog
"The Socket OrganizeIT™ Suite is an industry first – offering a complete solution to manage a library of music and video using the Socket SDIO In-Hand Scan Card (ISC) with your favorite mobile device."
At $299 USD, this isn't for the mere hobbyist, but if you're serious about cataloguing your CDs and DVDs, this is a killer solution. The kit includes an SD-based bar code scanner, and the client software that will take those bar codes and look them up online to build your catalogue.

posted by Jerry permanent link

eLibrary Watch
Libraries in a ’Net future
The news that Google will digitize more than 15 million books and make them available online didn’t dominate headlines all week, but it would have if editors had a longer view for historical impact.
Google’s agreement with five outstanding libraries to digitize many of their books is likely to be one of the most important milestones in the development of the Web. As the pace of moving these books online accelerates, your home computer might become the gateway to more books than almost any library in the world holds. College professors might design more extensively linked reading collections online for classes. A new cottage industry of entrepreneurs custom-printing copies of books online might arise. And the kind of real-world libraries Allen County property owners are paying to expand will still pay vital roles in our lives.

posted by Jerry permanent link

eYellow Pad For Dummies
How To Publish An EBook Without Writing A Word.....
There are many, many advantages to selling eBooks online, not least the fact that once the eBook is written, the sales and delivery process can be automated so that as the seller, there is literally nothing for you to do when you make a sale. To illustrate this point, I have sold over 15,000 copies of my most popular eBooks since I first wrote them but other than carrying out an update every few months, these products now don't involve me in any work whatsoever.

posted by Jerry permanent link

iPod Forecasting
iPod Wants Your Money:
1. 5GB iPod Mini
2. iPod Flash 3GB
3. iPod Photo 80GB
Thanks for Herman Tjahja for the links

posted by Jerry permanent link

Motorolipod
Jobs at Motorola Webcast
Following the "out and about" theme, Ed introduced the first product - the Motorola 398. Its main feature is MP3 playback; though it currently has 128MB of memory (which is removable, thanks to SD cards), it is scheduled to have a 512MB capacity by this time next year.
This was an excellent opportunity for Ed to bring a special guest. Steve Jobs, come on down! Looking for "a way to bring iTunes capability to these exciting new devices," Steve announced the webcast's breaking news: a partnership between Motorola and Apple to bring iTunes capabilities to Motorola phones by the first half of next year. Although I at first expected this to mean something like a cable between a phone and an iPod to transfer a couple songs over, I was somewhat disappointed to know that it instead meant you still need a PC (or Mac) to transfer songs. Thankfully, Steve Jobs clarified that transfers can be done by both USB and Bluetooth (which, by the way, all the phones announced tonight have), so at least we don't need to *completely* connect.

posted by Jerry permanent link

testing, I am posting this via my nokia.
FYI, it is extremely slow in typing to the blog box.
All blogging features are "missing" from the box bar.

posted by Jerry permanent link

What is the most important event for eBook industry in 2004? email me

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/16/2004

200,000,000
iTunes Music Store Downloads Top 200 Million Songs
“iTunes has now sold over 200 million songs, making it the world’s number one online music store by far,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to be making music an even more popular gift this holiday season with iTunes and iPod.”

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/15/2004

Time Out!
Crack Store Pricing Codes
This is FUN:
There are a lot of codes and numbers on the shelf price tags in drug stores. Recently, Stacy pointed out a neat code on the shelf tags in Longs Drug Stores: A code that shows the store cost.
This code substitutes letters for numbers in the price. For example, H stands for 2 and L stands for 5.
So, for example, if a candy bar has a retail price of 44?, it might have a cost code of HL, indicating that Longs Drugs pays 25? for it.
Source J-Walk Blog

posted by Jerry permanent link

Ready for Rumble
RealNetworks promises iPod lockout fix
Apple Computer Inc. has updated the software for some of its iPod music players so that songs bought from RealNetworks Inc. won't play. RealNetworks says they're not sure why it's happened, but they're working on a fix. Apple suggests that it's what to expect if you use music that isn't officially supported on the iPod.
The RealNetworks Music Store competes directly with Apple's iTunes Music Store, but RealNetworks suffers a disadvantage: RealNetworks doesn't have its own music player, as Apple does with its market-dominating iPod. Although the iPod supports different music formats, the only protected format it works with is the music sold through the iTunes Music Store.

posted by Jerry permanent link

iReader
Build an eDoc Reader for your iPod
This article is the first in a series that walks you through the process of developing a Cocoa application that allows you to read large text documents, PDF files, and other electronic books on your 3G iPod or newer. Following along with this series highlights a number of valuable concepts such as text wrangling, interfacing to the user defaults system, incorporating existing open source software as a part of your own project, and tackling the Cocoa-Java bridge.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Bugs Acrobats
Bugs Bring New Dangers to Acrobat Users
Reader incorrectly parses the .etd files used in eBook transactions so that an .etd file containing special code in the "title" or "baseurl" fields can cause an invalid memory access.
This could allow the execution of malicious code with the privileges of the user, iDefense said. An attacker could exploit this bug by sending an e-mail message including either an attached PDF file or a link to the file.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/14/2004

2014
Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database
It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections.
Although Google executives declined to comment on its technology or the cost of the undertaking, others involved estimate the figure at $10 for each of the more than 15 million books and other documents covered in the agreements. Librarians involved predict the project could take at least a decade.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/13/2004

"Digital Jaunt" DOES Illustrate Microsoft's DRM problems
Uh-oh! Microsoft Techies among Victims of Draconian E-Book DRM

Hey, different perspectives make for a good group blog, no? A few points in reply in an earlier post on my TeleRead item:

(1) Whether or not outsourcing happened, this still would seem to be a very bad reflection on the usability of Microsoft e-book technology. And why was the outsourcing needed in the first place? The Microsoft employee himself mentioned the headaches of DRM as a possiblity. Microsoft's DRM is among the worst, especially from a library perspective. It's no small coincidence why OverDrive, despite its relationship with Microsoft, prefers Mobipocket and even Adobe in its library program. The fact that Microsoft library users must cope with different readers, of course, aggravates the problem. See Point #3's reference to the need for a standard e-book format for consumers--something about which Microsoft itself was once quite clueful.

(2) Granted, employees don't always enjoy the best service, but even allowing for that, the usability level of the library seems an utter disgrace. The hassles of Microsoft technology must have just worsened the mess.

(3) The statement about Fictionwise ("has shown that it takes the same time to buy a book whether it is protected by DRM or not") is a bit of a generalization. Fictionwise carries many formats beyond Microsoft. If experiences at other stores are characteristic, Microsoft's DRM is far more of a bother for consumers and support staff than, say, Mobipocket. The real solution, of course, remains a user-friendly universal format to reduce consumers' confusion, whether in a DRM context or others. Although I'm not the biggest fan of DRM, I can see the possibility of having it done in a machine-linked manner, just so there's more flexibility than Microsoft offers. No "X number of activations and that's it, buddy!"

(4) Microsoft's products are hardly "first class" all the time--unless the most operative words are "in one way or another." Check out Bloody Sunday at the Washington Post for Internet Explorer and the so-called Google killer. Often people go with Microsoft because of OS-encouraged dependencies, not quality.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

P2P Watch
BitTorrent stirs up storm
As its name suggests, the software lets computer users share large chunks of data. But unlike other popular file-sharing programs, the more people swap data on BitTorrent, the quicker it flows — and that includes such large files as feature films and computer games.
Because of its speed and effectiveness, BitTorrent steadily gained in popularity after the recording industry began cracking down last year on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established file-sharing software.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/11/2004

Barnes and Noble read this (on ebook sales)
Physics Model Predicts Book Sales
The model predicts how sales will decline after they peak according to how the peak occurred. The decline after an exogenous shock is fairly steep, while the decay after an endogenous shock is more gradual. The model was 84 percent correct in the researchers tests.
Book publishing houses and marketing firms could use the method to quantify how books will sell post-peak, and to time the market, according to the researchers.

posted by Jerry permanent link

iTunesPal
Apple's iTunes now accepting PayPal
Customers who buy songs, albums and gift certificates at the music store can use eBay's wallet technology to pay.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Freeware
WordNetCE for Windows Mobile (Pocket PC) 2002/2003
You may want to consider this dictionary/thesaurus something that is going to be extremely helpful in finding meanings to difficult words, or a better substitute word for that literary masterpiece. However, you may also want to consider that WordNet from Princeton is NOT a concise dictionary, it is a huge manual effort of giving meanings to words and tying those meanings together so that it can be useful for automated applications (such as AI). Each iteration of WordNet's release brings forth fixes and additions so it still remains a worthy database to pursue.
(source: PocketPCThoughts)

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/09/2004

Nice Blog
Cult of Mac
For Die Hard Mac Fans

posted by Jerry permanent link

Googlebooks
How to find eBooks with Google
As you know Google.com is the most popular search engine in the world.
Here are some tips to helps you find eBooks with Google:
Find Apache's (default) Index page
Try this query:
Code:
+("index of") +("/ebooks"|"/book") +(chm|pdf|lit|zip|rar) +apache
Find a particular eBook file
Try this query:
Code:
allinurl: +(rar|chm|zip|pdf|lit|tgz) TheTitle

For more using Google Advance Operator click here
Thanks to Force@c*.net.id

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/08/2004

New Michael Crichton: 100% Micropay Rebate!
(with your credit card)

State of Fear
by Michael Crichton
State of Fear is a superb blend of edge-of-your-seat suspense and thought-provoking commentary on how information is manipulated in the modern world. From the streets of Paris, to the glaciers of Antarctica to the exotic and dangerous Solomon Islands, State of Fear takes the reader on a rollercoaster thrill ride, all the while keeping the brain in high gear.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/07/2004

...But Odorless
Wow, just like the real thing
While you can jump quickly from one chapter to another and search for text in an electronic document, it can be a pain to browse through the entire contents of a 2,000 page document on a computer.
This is what a Singapore firm called E-Book Systems (EBS) has been working quietly to fix for the past six years.
Said EBS president and co-founder Dr Ho Seng Beng: 'By its nature, a paper book is counter-intuitive compared to an ancient scroll of text.
'With scrolls, you read on one long continuous parchment but, in books, the text is chopped up into different pages.
'Yet, even if you flip the pages back and forth in a random manner, you can still gain a good overview of the contents.'

posted by Jerry permanent link

eFlicks is the Future for Mobilephones
A Library and Cinema in Your Pocket
One day before too long, when your mobile telephone sounds, it could be a novel calling to recount how the headstrong heroine dumped the handsome heartbreaker. Or it might be a guidebook surfacing at a critical moment in a crowded bar to provide you with pickup lines in Spanish, French or German.
The increasing power of cellphones is fast shaping innovative forms of compact culture: micro-lit, phone soap operas and made-for-mobile dramas that can be absorbed in less time than it takes to flick through a book introduction.
"Are people going to read 'War and Peace' on their telephones?" asked David Harper, whose company, Wireless Ink, in Cold Spring, N.Y., offers Web users cellphone-size literature on such weighty themes as the zombie apocalypse. "The answer is probably no. Right now the content on mobile devices is almost like early television. What they did then was to sit down and do a radio broadcast for the television screen. But there was a picture. Our mission now is to get feedback."

posted by Jerry permanent link

  12/06/2004

Tech Watch
Search Engines for Handwritten Documents
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have created a tool for automatically searching handwritten historical documents, such as the 140,000 pages that make up George Washington's personal papers in the Library of Congress. The most interesting part is that the papers are scanned versions of the originals and the search tool actually recognizes the handwritten text from these images."

posted by Jerry permanent link

Free PDF
Japan's Rise Again (Tech Perspective)
The Japanese economy is undergoing historic changes to realize a long-awaited recovery, led by technology and other industries. As a result, stakes are particularly high this holiday shopping season as consumer electronics plays an important role in the turnaround effort.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Quick How-To
Bigger Text for the eBookwise-1150
At $100, the eBookwise-1150 is a bargain--and it's a still better one now that people are figuring out ways to make books more viewable on the LCD screen. The display is usable for most e-book readers. But it could be better for some aging eyes if the words on the screen were bigger or in boldface. The answer, at least for public domain texts and changeable commercial books, is as easy as the editor you use for Web pages. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  12/04/2004

"An Idea Whose Time Has Come Back"
New York Times Article Upbeat on E-Books
Sunday's NYT Book Review will carry an upbeat article on e-books, complete with mention of the New York Public Library's impressive 3,000-title efforts. The writer misses many of the recent developments of e-bookdom such as the debut of the $100 eBookwise-1150, a reborn Gemstar machine. And the DRM mess and the Tower of eBabel--the horrors that consumers, publishers and libraries face with conflicting proprietary formats of problematic durability and accessibility over the long term--don't get the space they deserve. Still, it's great to see writer Sarah Glazer showing far more of an open mind than many in the press. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  12/03/2004

The Day PC without IBM PC
IBM puts its PC business up for sale
International Business Machines Corp.'s possible exit from the personal computer business would be the latest move in what amounts to a long goodbye from a field it pioneered and revolutionized.
The New York Times reported Friday that IBM is in serious discussions with the Lenovo Group, China's biggest maker of personal computers, and at least one other unidentified prospective buyer for a sale that could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion. Other possible buyers could include Japan's Toshiba Corp., analysts said.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Simpl A1 headphone amplifier for iPod introduced
I use Bose Quitecomfort II, and I believe this product can add power to listen.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Buy or Wait
iPod Photo Power User Review
The Good: Apple's best iPod yet, featuring a new color screen and user interface, photo display through itself and TV sets, and 17-hour battery life. Sixty-Gigabyte version sets new iPod capacity mark.
The Bad: New features aren't as fully realized or evolved as Power Users might expect; photo display functionality requires extended sync process, no instantaneous display of photos downloaded with peripheral accessories, expensive by comparison with other iPods that feature identical music playback capability.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Free eBooks:
Little Lady of the Big House by Jack London
Helen with the High Hand by Arnold Bennett

posted by Jerry permanent link